When There Is Nothing Else
by thestupidgenius1123
Summary: His face is wet, too, and I don't say anything but I do notice. Kisses start tentatively, subconsciously, and I know I should stop them but I don't. I taste our tears on my lips and feel like I'm bleeding out, my life draining away. Post-Angel. Fax. Oneshot. Rated 16 . Drabble.


**When There Is Nothing Else**

**A/N: Guys…guys…I think my writing brain is broken. **

**Every time I sit down to write I can't get anything coherent out. It sucks. Especially because I have so many half-written documents. I want to cry. **

**This was all I could manage to finish. All I can seem to write right now is drabble. Solemn drabble. **

**I don't even know how I feel about it.**

**I just had to get something out. **

**[Summary: His face is wet, too, and I don't say anything but I do notice. Kisses start tentatively, subconsciously, and I know I should stop them but I don't. I taste our tears on my lips and feel like I'm bleeding out, my life draining away. Post-**_**Angel**_**. Fax. Oneshot. Rated 16+. Drabble.]**

**Rating Note: I'm rating this T because there's technically nothing too graphic for teens in it. The rating is loose; I'd say is 16+. Which means really, even if your age ends in -teen, that doesn't mean you should read it. Then again, a lot of 13 year olds now are already reading lemons left and right, so…you be the judge. It's drabble anyways, so anything to intimate is definitely not graphic. **

**Note: Post that-part-in-**_**Angel**_**-where-Angel-"dies." Here she really does. I saw this part of the book a prime opportunity for them to reunite and forgive, but it never happened and I was heartbroken. So, here we are. **

**One last Note: I like to pretend canon Max and Fang are older than they are…but since it takes place in the book I don't know how you all feel about it. Very OOC for 14 year old Fax. I see this more as 17 year old Fax, but set in **_**Angel**_**. Does that even make sense? Probably not.**

**pancakes-for-you (if you read this): I stay away from most MR fanfiction these days, unless I've already started them or follow the author religiously. I get most of my spur-of-the-moment inspiration from real books or real life, and I hope to God no one has done this plot before! Haha. Anyways, I have to admit I read a bit of other FF, but not recently. Why? Got suggestions? **

• • •

_I wish we wouldn't have found her. _

That's all I can think. My breath is gone, my heart is gone, I don't know what to do. I cry out something that's barely literate and Iggy is next to me, in front of me, by my feet in seconds.

I had almost stepped on her.

"Did you find her?" Gazzy cries toward me, his dusty hands cupping his mouth.

I can't even say anything; not until Gazzy runs towards us after seeing the look on my face.

"No, Gazzy!" I shout, finding my voice long enough. "_Please_."

Nudge grabs the Gasman as he tries to run past me to Iggy and he shoves her, his face frantic.

"Let _go_! Stop, Nudge!" Gazzy wiggles away, tears already on his face. "I _have _to…"

My fingers reach out to him but don't get close enough before his legs fail him and he goes down beside Iggy.

"No."

_My fault_. That's my first thought.

_Fang's fault_. That's my second.

_Gazzy_. That's my most important one. I gather him to me, sinking to my knees in the rubble. He's barely breathing through the tears, I notice, and my heart is probably completely still now. I know hers is, and that hurts the most.

"Gazzy," I whisper, choked my emotion. Everything else has stopped. Iggy's hand falls on my arm and then he's on the other side of the boy, wrapping his arms around us both.

"But she…she…" He reaches out blindly and grabs his sisters limp wrist, fumbling for a pulse. "Maybe…I think she might…maybe…"

He trails off, knowing there's nothing. He's reduced to sobbing in .2 seconds, and I can do nothing but hold him and wish I was anyone else. I hold it together because I have to, because I have to be Gazzy's rock. Then, when we wrap her body and take her somewhere to be buried, I have to be Nudge's. When we get back to the hotel and Iggy finally breaks, I have to be his.

All through this, I don't talk to Fang. I don't really see him, because when I'm occupied with one broken flock member, he is with another. Nudge clings to him like a lifeline.

It's the next morning when I finally see him. Iggy, Nudge, and Gazzy all ended up in my hotel bed last night, and I don't think we were all ever asleep at once. I get through the whole morning swallowing down unshed tears and biting back tantrums of how _fucking unfair_ it is, until the four of us reach Fang's room.

The whirlwind of post-death chaos is gone when I see him. He looks just as terrible as I do. His gang isn't there, I don't know where they are. But he's there, waiting for us, waiting for me, maybe, his face tired and his eyes miserable and I lose my footing. Dylan catches my elbow when my body stops working and I almost collapse. Fang's eyes are still locked on mine when Iggy takes me around the waist and says, "Bring her to him."

I need their help to reach Fang. I collapse into him, losing all of my resolve as his arms surround me. His fingers grip the hair at the back of his neck, I press my face into his shirt until I can't really breathe, and I think the pain in my lungs may possibly lighten the pain in my heart.

"Breathe," Fang says hoarsely as the two of us sink onto the edge of his mattress. "I'm here."

I can't breathe and cry at the same time, and crying is more insistent but breathing wins out. I suck in a hard, long breath, and then tears spring from my eyes. I can't tell you how I held them in so long. All I can see in my head is my little baby, her bouncy blonde curls and her innocent smile.

"Go," Fang whispers, I think to Iggy, and I can tell when we're alone.

"Could we have stopped it?" I beg softly through my sobbing. Fang curls himself around me, his body shaking. We slide sideways, lying chest to chest on our sides on his mattress.

I think we both know the answer. Yes, of course. I could've told her not to go down there, not to stay down there. We could've left Paris to it's own demise and gotten to safety. Fang could've made sure Angel was out and stayed back to be last.

"No," Fang says roughly. "_No_."

It's what I have to hear. Otherwise, I'll never get over it. I'll never get past it. Never. Ever.

Neither will he.

"No. You're right," I cry. "I almost wish we hadn't found her."

"Not knowing would have been worse," Fang admits.

"I don't think anything can be worse," I choke, feeling like my heart is bursting. "She was my _baby_…"

"I know," Fang murmurs, his lips brushing over my brow. "I know, I know, I know…"

His face is wet, too, and I don't say anything but I do notice. Kisses start tentatively, subconsciously, and I know I should stop them but I don't. I taste our tears on my lips and feel like I'm bleeding out, my life draining away.

"We'll never get her back," I voice into his mouth. "I'll never get her back."

"She's here," Fang says shakily, his fingers pressing into the middle of my chest. I don't feel her, though. Really, I don't feel anything. The cavity beneath his fingers feels empty.

"Is she?" I plead. "Fang…"

"I need you."

My eyes soften. I let the tears roll, but immediately shift so _I'm _holding _him_.

"I have you," I whisper to his hair, his face pressed into my chest. "I'm here."

This is different. I don't think this has ever happened. His shoulders shake and I hold him and his pain and fury and guilt seeps out into me. We share our agony. We've been in intimate positions like this before, but we've never poured such terrible emotions into each other. Swapped things like hatred and regret and sorrow and hopelessness and wrath. Filled each other with such agony while trying to rid ourselves of it.

"Why?" I ask, not expecting anything in return. But he does answer; and his answer breaks my heart.

"I don't know."

"Not Angel," I whisper, my voice shaky. "Why…?" 

Why leave me? Why break my into pieces? Why? Why? _Why_?

"I don't know," Fang laments. "I don't know. I don't know. I wanted to fix things. I wanted…"

"I know. I forgive you. I forgive you. God, I don't care, Fang. You know I don't."

"You're so important to me," Fang murmurs, but not lovingly; frantically. "All of you. I can't…"

"She knew," I sniffle softly in his ear. "She knew you were trying to do the right thing. She didn't feel abandoned."

"I failed her."

"If you failed her, we all did," I say firmly through my tears. "If you failed her then…then I condemned her."

"_I need you_."

Now? Forever? I don't know what he means, but I give myself. Not only because he needs me, but because I need him, too. I've needed him for too long.

I take him into my arms, into my hands. I touch every part of him because he needs it. Fixing him is my first priority. It distracts me from my own excruciating emotions. I focus on somehow erasing his pain, if only for seconds, and it works.

I do things that I never would have done if I weren't so desperate to bring him away from the edge of grief. We find solace in the most deplorable ways, using each other as objects to find some kind of anchor. We get back to the basics; we find each other in the most primal way. His mouth doesn't belong anywhere but my skin. I'm not scared of having him, I'm scared of not. In fact, if he doesn't take me, I might float away and lose myself forever.

He takes me.

He anchors me.

He absolves me.

I love him for it.

And for a million other things.

I lay in his arms. I breathe him in, I let him surround me. His hot skin is on mine, his tears on my cheeks and chest and his lips everywhere else.

He says I saved him and I don't know how. He says he loves me and I know, I know, I know. He says my name, he says God's name, he says he's sorry.

_So, so, so sorry_. For everything.

I forgive him. For everything he's ever done. Everything he hasn't.

I kiss him and I hold him and I say I love him for everything. For every horrible thing he's ever done, and every scar he's even gotten or given, and every gentle touch he's ever blessed me with. I tell him I love him for him and his devils and his angels and Angel loved him too and he cries. He really cries.

And I cry.

Together we unravel in more ways than one.

In the end, I wonder how we'll survive. I wonder how we'll get up and face reality, face the others, face the world. I wonder how we'll ever move on from pain and guilt and despair. I wonder how we will keep each others' hearts beating.

I wonder and wonder even though I know, _I know_, that we will.

**A/N: Okay, I know that in other fandoms this would be T… but is this rated T for MR? MR has a younger target audience, so I don't know. Someone tell me. I'll change it if need be. (Honestly, I find way worse in my school library, so I **_**think **_**I'm okay.)**

**Thanks for reading. **


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